Tuesday, December 31, 2019

What Makes a Museum?




ART

What Makes a Museum?

As New York's MoMA reopens we look over Magnum photos made at the institution spanning more than seven decades
Rene Burri Portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol. MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). New York City. USA. 1959. © Rene Burri | Magnum Photos
Museums are, for some, the dusty hallways of drawn-out school visits: the sombre halls walked by the cultural elite. They are the place to preciously guard masters and their ideas, or at times to preserve colonial loot. Museums represent established culture and legitimize movements; but they are also the place collective memories and meanings are made and tenderly held – where lives and histories intertwine, begin and end.
Since it first opened its doors on Fifth Avenue in November 1929, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, has been something of an experiment – sometimes because there was no choice. Indeed, the museum was unveiled just over a week after the Wall Street Crash. Alfred H Barr Jr. referred to it as “a laboratory,” in 1939—one that the public could participate in. When MoMA reveals its new gallery spaces on October 21st, 2019, it hopes to redefine the museum and the way people might encounter art within it. A lot is made of the works that hang in a museum – but what of the museum, its architecture, spaces and the visitors who activate it, day after day, year after year?
THEORY & PRACTICE

Photography and the Art of Looking

Magnum Photographers
Rene Burri Exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work. MoMA. New York City. USA. 1967. © Rene Burri | Magnum Photos
Rene Burri Exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work. MoMA. New York City. USA. 1967. © Rene Burri | Magnum Photos
Erich Hartmann Rodin sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA. 1963. © Erich Hartmann | Magnum Photos

"It’s these kinds of interactions, between past and present, inanimate and animate, that remind us of the role of a museum in reflecting and reaffirming life"

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Burt Glinn Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA. 1949. © Burt Glinn | Magnum Photos
Burt Glinn’s 1949 photograph – taken before Glinn became one of the first American photographers to join Magnum, in 1954 — of two male visitors staring with bemusement at the intimate parts of a nude male sculpture give a playful glimpse into the museum experience. Clearly amused by their reaction to the art, Glinn also identifies one of the many unique opportunities that modern art presents; to bring us close-up, face-to-face with the unexpected.
Richard Kalvar In front of the Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA. 1970. © Richard Kalvar | Magnum Photos

"A lot is made of the works that hang in a museum – but what of the museum, its architecture, spaces and the visitors who activate it...?"

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Eve Arnold Sylvana Mangano, actress, at the Museum of Modern Art. New York City. New York. USA. 1956. © Eve Arnold | Magnum Photos
Eve Arnold – who also joined Magnum in 1954 – likewise captures the MoMA viewing experience with candor, through intimate, voyeur-like snapshots of solitary guests as they look at the art. She finds delightful juxtapositions between the spectator and the art: the elegant chignon of the Italian actress Slyvana Mangano and the low pile of hair twisted into a knot of a bust she gazes towards; a chic, gloved visitor in 1959 looks down over her glasses at a tiny sculpted man with an ample paunch, as if they’re locked in some kind of face-off, both equally unimpressed. It’s these kinds of interactions, between past and present, inanimate and animate, that remind us of the role of a museum in reflecting and reaffirming life.
ARTS & CULTURE

The Art of Looking at Art

Elliott Erwitt
Eve Arnold Visitor at the Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA. 1959. © Eve Arnold | Magnum Photos

"The relationship between MoMA and its public is unique. An architectural and cultural landmark in Manhattan, it has been the place in which much of the city’s own art history has been made"

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Henri Cartier-Bresson Picasso retrospective. MoMA. NYC. USA. 1957. © Henri Cartier-Bresson | Magnum Photos
Dennis Stock French artist Marcel Duchamp (left) on the Opening of Max Ernst retrospective. New York city. USA. 1961. © Dennis Stock | Magnum Photos
Dennis Stock Max Ernst opening at the Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA. 1961. © Dennis Stock | Magnum Photos
The relationship between MoMA and its public is unique. An architectural and cultural landmark in Manhattan, it has been the place in which much of the city’s own art history has been made. Henri Cartier-Bresson documents one of the many monumental occasions at the museum, with pictures of the opening of the historic 1939 retrospective of Picasso’s work – a show that defined the artist and the museum for decades after, while Matisse’s La Danse appears behind two nuns in deep discussion in another of his unforgettable MoMA pictures. Masterpieces are just visible behind glamorous guests in Dennis Stock’s candid shot of a suited Marcel Duchamp at the opening of Max Ernst’s retrospective in 1961. Decades later and Martin Parr photographs the queues for a Bonnard exhibition, a younger, more casually dressed audience, sheltering under the coats from the rain. Style may have changed, but with drinks in hand and silly poses in front of the art – it seems that habits haven’t much.

ARTS & CULTURE

Photographing Picasso

Magnum Photographers
Henri Cartier-Bresson "The dance" by Henri Matisse, French painter. Manhattan. Museum of Modern Art. New York City. United States. © Henri Cartier-Bresson | Magnum Photos
Martin Parr The queue for the Pierre Bonnard exhibition at MoMA. New York City. USA. 1998 © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos
Museums are made by the people who inhabit them – and the people who create the works. Other historic moments in MoMA’s history are recorded by Wayne Miller, in a photograph of the shuffling crowds at a rare early photo-exhibition, in 1955, Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man (which Miller co-curated); in another Cartier-Bresson image a young couple take a break at the café; while René Burri trains his lens on two women chatting in the garden. These images present the museum not only as a cultural institute but as a place where all kinds of people come together – a place where time is seemingly suspended.
ARTS & CULTURE

Humanism, Magnum, and the Family of Man

Wayne Miller Wayne Miller's wife and children in front of a picture of the H-Bomb, at the Family of Man Exhibitition (by Edward Steichen) at the Museum of Modern Art. The H-Bomb photograph was provided by the U (...)

"Museums are made by the people who inhabit them"

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Rene Burri Museum of Modern Art. © Rene Burri | Magnum Photos
Rene Burri Exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work. MoMA. New York City. USA. 1967. © Rene Burri | Magnum Photos
Henri Cartier-Bresson Cafeteria. MoMA. Manhattan. NYC. USA. 1957. © Henri Cartier-Bresson | Magnum Photos
Until somewhat recently, with some notable exceptions, photographers have mostly been onlookers at museums. Little space existed for photography as an oeuvre in the world’s artistic institutions. MoMA was one of the first to acquire and exhibit photographs, and its photography department was established as far back as 1940, eleven years after its founding. The first photographs were acquired by the museum in 1933, from Walker Evans’ solo exhibition, Photographs of 19th Century Houses. That was the first solo exhibition on photography to take place at MoMA. Erich Hartmann captured another piece of photography’s history at MoMA, in a portrait of the late Curator of Photography, Grace M. Mayer, who joined the museum in 1958 and organised the first exhibitions in the museum’s dedicated photography galleries, opened in 1964.
Erich Hartmann Grace M. Mayer, curator of Photography for the Museum of Modern Art, at the Noguchi Museum. Queens, New York. USA. 1992. © Erich Hartmann | Magnum Photos

"There are also those moments when a museum is empty – standing still and monumental..."

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Martine Franck Garden of the Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA. © Martine Franck | Magnum Photos
There are also those moments when a museum is empty – standing still and monumental. Architectural megaliths that have been transformed multiple times, museums become an intrinsic part of the cityscape.
Other images offer more architectural views of MoMA over the seasons and years, taken from a distance, and revealing the museum’s DNA, documents of its structure and essence – either before the masses descend or as they teem through it. An image by Richard Kalvar sees sculptures by Alberto Giacometti – instantly identifiable – aping the high-rise structures of Lower Manhattan.
Alex Webb Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA. 2005. © Alex Webb | Magnum Photos
Richard Kalvar Pieces in the sculpture garden. Alberto Giacometti exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). New York City. USA. 1966 © Richard Kalvar | Magnum Photos
The world has seen seismic social and political shifts over the ninety years of MoMA’s existence, and as it prepares for its latest incarnation it is also preparing to evolve, to better represent the world as it is now and redress the imbalances of the past. Micha Bar-Am’s fallen statue offers a metaphorical hint at the new order taking over, a reinvention of history as we know it, and a reminder that the structures of a museum sometimes need to be dismantled and rebuilt.
Micha Bar Am © Micha Bar Am | Magnum Photos

East Hampton, New York. USA. 1983.

Elliott Erwitt
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- Written by Charlotte Jansen · Oct 21, 2019


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